In some ways this is really Part One, because although Bill’s set of instructions for  building your own wood burning oven is  thorough enough, the inspirational ovens of his childhood got only fleeting mention when he wrote it.

Now, thanks to the comments section, the story has its start. A simple query (from a fellow Lithuanian) has summoned those missing memories: of the outdoor brick ovens built by the southern Italians on Bill’s mother’s side, and of his apprenticeship with Willie Orban, his Lithuanian Godfather, who ran “the largest and the best bakery in town.”

First, the (abbreviated) query:

Hi Bill… I have a winter place in south west Florida where I plan to build an oven, however the clay belts are in the panhandle!!! Are you aware of an alternative to raw clay? I was thinking of using clay bricks which I can get readily get for free. I think baking bread is in the genetic code of all Lithuanians. Thanks much, Stan.

Next there should be a thanks to Stan from me, because here is Bill’s reply:

Hi Stan,

Well free is the way to go, isn’t it?  Although father’s side of the family, and hence my name, is Lithuanian, it was from my mother’s southern Italian side that I learned about home made bread ovens. There were several in our neighborhood (in Washington Pennsylvania, just south of Pittsburgh) and all were made from clay brick.

As I recall, and as old Angelo de Francesco described it to my uncle, the process consists largely of laying in a circular course of brick, leaving room for the door, and raising this course for a foot or so.

Then begins a gradual reduction in the diameter of the circle, by setting the successive courses not directly on top of the previous course, but somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the brick width inward. This process is carried on until the constriction of the wall meets at the top. I think this is called a corbelled vault in brick-laying parlance.

The bricks must be laid with mortar/cement and are, of course staggered along their length, no two successive courses having seams directly overlaying one another.

I recall at least one smaller oven which was built using a wooden barrel as a form over which to arrange the bricks.

In some of these ovens, the entire outer wall was cemented over, thus making the ovens stronger, more efficient (due to the greater thermal mass), and relatively water and weather proof.

In others the geometry of the corbelled brickwork was unadorned, and these were protected from the weather by a shed roof.  I think one oven was double walled with rubble/gravel between the inner and outer brick walls.

As I recall, all were built upon a waist high base, all were domed, and all had but a single door. And I think all of the bricks were red, probably coming from clays mined just down the pike; the entire area was known for its pottery industry.

As I say, I learned about building these ovens from the Italians in the neighborhood. You will be pleased to know, however, that I learned baking from Willie Orban, my Lithuanian Godfather. Willie ran the largest and the best bakery in town.

We had several large electrical geared mixing bowls that were capable of handling 200 pounds of flour at a time, several proofing and retarding boxes, each working full time, and a large gas-fired oven with 20 foot long Ferris-wheel revolving shelves.

I would show up for work somewhere around midnight, commence to mixing the bread and set it to rising using pound sized bricks of gray, squeaky bakers yeast. As this ferment began I had just a half hour to mix up the sweet doughs for the pastries. Then began the successive pinching off of the dough as it aged, each fifty pound pull to be cut and kneaded into distinctive shapes.

As these rose in the pans and trays and the remainder of bread in the mixing bowl continued to work,  I/we had just a jot of time to roll out the sweet dough into buttered layers for the pastries, then pull off the second fifty pound batch of dough for the crusty loaves. Somewhere in between, the first batch of breads would go into the oven; the pastries cut, filled, proofed and then set into the oven; cake batter made; a second and third batch of dough mixed and set to working; dinner rolls mixed, proofed, cut, rolled and proofed again; cakes baked; cookie dough mixed, chilled, cut, filled and baked; large bread loaves weighed, cut, kneaded, braided, seeded, proofed and baked off; cakes cooled, cut and layered/decorated; goods coming from the ovens moved to cooling racks, the sweet ones dipped or drizzled with fondant. Meanwhile, doughnut batters were mixed, aged, proofed, fried, and glazed or filled;  puff shells baked and then filled with creams; fruit pie dough mixed, chilled, rolled, filled and baked…

And then the cleaning up, washing of the pans, sweeping of the floors, maintaining the machines, delivering the wedding cakes to the churches, hard rolls to the VFW, pastries to the Bar Mitzvah or Rotary Club.

There was never time to eat, never time even to stop and pee, but then again there was never a need; food was everywhere and the heat and work caused constant sweat to seep from the skin.  Time, meaning, horizon all dissolved into a blur.

It was great! Like living in New York City. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but would never want to do it again.

I did this as a skinny teenager and then went on to college. For Willie it was all he knew. He was trapped there, strong as an ox but with no teeth, aching joints, high blood pressure, a bad stomach, crippling arthritis and the paranoid world view of a mind pumped to the limit by fear and adrenalin, finally eroded to half its potential. The last time I saw him he was glued to his TV set watching endless reruns of the Pope’s visit to what looked like a ball field. He wanted me to watch the reruns with him, share the vision, the glory, marry and put a baker’s dozen in the wife’s oven…

I begged off and walked across the road to the spring near my grandmother’s house, passing my granddad’s bread oven on the way.

Yes Stan, go with the free bricks. You can make a very good oven with free bricks and a little mortar. And the smoke of the fire puts such a splendid color and taste in the crust of the bread. You won’t regret it!

best of luck,

Bill Bakaitis

Billy and Willie @ 1950

Well Pooey on that, as stepdaughter Celia used to say. I wouldn’t be without one and I’m not particularly gadget prone. In fact most of my cooking equipment is either

Vintage:

Bill manning the Strand Universal kitchen stove.

Or primitive

The outdoor clay oven. Beans in the pot, pork roast in the pan, coals banked at the back to boost heat for the first few hours of cooking. The wooden door is lined with flashing to keep it from getting burned.

We didn’t choose the current incumbent it because it was a turbocharged 1300 watts, or because it was black and chrome, thus more or less matching the kitchen decor. We chose it because it was the only mid-sized unit that would fit on the shelf as currently configured.

This selection method worked out very well with the dishwasher. When we did the kitchen back in 1995, the Asko was the only one that would fit under the 34 inch counter top (unless you count dishwasher drawers, already available but out of our financial reach – which alas they still are). Fifteen years later, it’s still going strong, quietly, efficiently…

Where was I ?

Oh, the micro.

Our current microwave - and, it must be admitted, a few other gadgets I’d be hard pressed to do without.

So far so good, except for its being way too powerful for some of the uses I’m used to. The defrost is little short of amazing, but a full cup of room temperature liquid will boil if you push the beverage button and fail to extract the cup in roughly half the pre-measured time.

There are 10 power levels. As far as I can tell, level 6 is about equal to full power on our old one. Fortunately 1 and 2 are still low enough to make melting chocolate the same tidy, near-foolproof breeze it was with the previous machine.

Chocolate (and caramel) aside, we mostly use this handy appliance to defrost and reheat, so it sounds at first as though the naysayers are right. They’re not; defrosting and reheating are huge, because they make it so much easier to eat well locally all year ‘round, even in the frost belt.

From late fall to mid-summer, the freezer is our reliable source of home grown tomatoes and sweet corn, harvest vegetable soups and stews, a good supply of local meat, and plenty of leftover lasagna, cassoulet, etc. the slow food version of heat n’ eat fast food.

Defrosting can of course be accomplished by always knowing what you want far enough ahead of time to allow complete thawing at room temperature. This is not how we operate, and I well remember the pre-micro days: Become fed up with how long it’s taking to thaw whatever by immersing the container in cool water. Switch to warm water. Become fed up. Put it in a saucepan over low heat. Poke and prod and pry at the slowly dwindling frozen lump while the rising sea of already-thawed material inexorably overcooks. Personally, I’d rather put the frozen item in the machine, go do something else and come back in 5 to 10 minutes to find the job accomplished.

Reheating is equally gratifying, for more or less the same reasons. Whatever it is reheats quickly, all of it at the same time, and unlike things reheated on stove or in oven, it’s  unlikely to dry out while doing so. Of course that’s why micros are lousy to cook with – unless you want to do a lot of waterless steaming – and may explain why the anti’s are so down on them. Nothing dries out, but nothing reduces either. Nothing browns and genuine crispness simply isn’t happening.

* Illustrated oven building instructions here, should you be looking for a project.

Result: not so many dead wild trees; fewer monocrop tree plantations, reduced use of  horrendous paper-processing chemicals. To say nothing of less giant log truck exhaust.

In other words, I’ve been cleaning out a few bookcases, bookcases that haven’t been cleaned out for quite a while. In addition to books, photographs and assorted memorabilia, they contained folders that I’d been thinking were full of old manuscripts but were in fact full of self-published food newsletters.

Tons – well, many pounds – of food newsletters. Newsletters beyond counting, from gifted writers and the prose-challenged, from good cooks and from people who should not be allowed near kitchens except in restaurants.

Old copies of keepers like The Art of Eating, Simple Cooking and Food History News will go to the Cushing library (which may be the very last library on earth willing to accept such things). The rest – into the recycle bin, with gratitude that there is finally something reasonably benign to do with unwanted paper.

For 4-6 servings:

Go down to the upright freezer, where “ready to eat,” items are stored. Extract:  the last qt. of Haddock, Corn and Crab Chowder with Chanterelles, 1 qt. Succotash (Black Mexican corn and Dr. Martin lima beans), 1 qt. of something labeled “Chicken and Corn stock, strong flavor, thin texture,” and 1 1/2 c. Chanterelle Cream Sauce.

Combine and heat. Decide more chanterelle is needed. Go back down to the mushroom section and get a little bag of Chanterelles in Butter. Add. Reheat. Serve topped with shredded lettuce and minced scallion.

In other words

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start your freezers!

At this point T.A.G is more of a cultural artifact than a source of great recipe ideas, but there are a few gems that still shine with undiminished luster. A “Congealed Avocado and Chicken salad,” for instance, contributed by Mrs. Jacque Puken, of Eunice, LA, doesn’t sound all that promising, but in fact it’s absolutely delicious and a perfect make-ahead for a crowd. It’s hearty enough to be a main dish, light enough to play well with all the chili, boudin and/or brats, easy to serve and easy to eat  - with or without a fork.

Molded and served like pate; no fork needed

Molded into a loaf and sliced; fork needed. Also chips. (Crunch must not be overlooked.)

When I decided to do this I was thinking only about New Orleans. But  just to put the cherry on the congealed salad, you could say it’s a tribute to Indianapolis as well; the gelatin obviously binds it to  the jello-based concoctions so popular in the Midwest.*

Sorry Hoosiers, but there’s simply no contest – you’re gonna get beat in the kitchen no matter what happens on the playing field. When your culinary historians can’t come up with anything more than corn, pork sandwiches and being the birthplace of Wonder Bread, you know you’ve got a problem.

Background: I wasn’t planning to talk about the Super Bowl – what’s to say, really? – at all but then I got annoyed by a recipe for a “lighter, more contemporary” gumbo, clearly timed to address football eats in a year when New Orleans – !Go Saints! – is playing for the first time. Nothing really wrong with the dish in question except its fundamental premise: traditional gumbos in all their assorted glories are to be passed over in favor of  modernity and abstemiousness.

Please.

But then what? New Orleans is a place that loves parties, food and talking about food in pretty much equal measure; there are dozens of terrific cookbooks and websites full of jambalayas and gumbos, po’ boys and peacemakers. No need for me to insert my oar into those familiar waters.

Off to the cookbook shelf, there to be greeted by an old friend.

Those scribbles are a gift from the pre-owner, who noted several favorite rolls and and desserts.

Almonds and lettuce can also provide crunch, if you've already had too many chips

CONGEALED CHICKEN AND AVOCADO SALAD ( adapted from Talk About Good)

For  about 1 1/2 quarts, 8- 10 main dish servings, enough pate for 25 or more, depending on what else you’re having. (Recipe may be doubled, which would tidily use one 4 lb. chicken)

Chicken salad:

1 1/2 c. strong chicken broth

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1 tbl. lemon juice

1 c. finely diced celery

3 tbl. minced parsley ( you can of course substitute cilantro, but it’s interesting to taste avocado without it – kind of like apples without cinnamon)

3 cups chopped cooked chicken, light and dark meat

1/2 c. plus 2 tbl. mayonnaise

salt and white pepper

Avocado topping:

1 envelope unflavored  gelatin

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 small onion, finely shredded or grated

2 tbl. lime juice

1 1/2  large or 2 small avocadoes, enough to make 1 heaping c. mashed

1/3 c. sour cream

1/3 c. finely dicd green pepper (use part or all jalapeno if you like, but see parsley, above)

For serving:

Crisps and crunchies: crackers, corn chips, toasted sliced almonds, shredded lettuce…

1. Assemble molding pans: loaf, bowl, fancy molds… rinse with cold water, line with plastic wrap and set aside. Don’t forget that if you want to have avocado on top of a tapered mold you have to prepare and put that layer in first. As long as the first layer is chilled before the second one goes on, order doesn’t matter.

2. For the chicken: Put 1/4 cup room temperature broth in a heatproof bowl, sprinkle on the gelatin and let soften, then heat the rest of the broth just to boiling and stir it in to dissolve. Add the lemon juice. Let the mixture cool, then refrigerate until gloppy – thickened but not yet solidified.

3. Stir in the celery, parsley and chicken, then the mayo. Taste, then season quite highly with salt and pepper. Put it in the prepared pan(s), pressing down to remove air spaces. Cover and chill.

4. For the Avocado: Put 2 tbl. cool water in a heatproof bowl, sprinkle on the gelatin and let soften, then stir in 1/3 c. boiling water, the salt, onion and lime juice. Cool, then chill until gloppy (see above).

5. Mash the avocado now. Stir in the sour cream and diced pepper and add to the gelatin mixture. Taste and adjust salt. (If the avocados taste bland, a tiny pinch of sugar and a drop – literally – of peanut oil may help). Spread over the chicken layer and chill.

That’s it. Salad keeps 2 or 3 days refrigerated, cover tightly to keep the onion odor from spreading around. I’m still playing with the leftovers from recipe testing. Made little turnovers this afternoon with some ( also leftover) flaky sour cream pastry. Very tasty; the gelatin keeps the filling moist without turning the crust soggy.

* Parts of the south, too, to tell the truth. T.A.G offers many jello-based extravaganzas that would be right at home on the banks of the Wabash.

No cracks about this being a rather ladylike version; the Junior League gets to party too

A few favorite moments from Talk About Good :

A recipe for Veal Scallopini Dip ” for a large crowd” that starts out by having you cut 6 to 8 pounds of thinly sliced veal into 1×2 inch pieces,which are then floured and deep fried before being stewed into submission.

A recipe for OKRA (Summer Preparation for Winter Gumbo) that reminds me of my own exhortations about making use of the freezer. It begins: ” I buy fresh okra by the sack in summer and freeze it cooked down, ready for instant winter gumbo when water and seafood are added…” Needless to say, there’s a lot more than okra in the recipe and its author admits ” You can easily allow one day for the preparation,” before saying “but it’s well worth it…”

A recipe for Easy Guacamole Salad that starts with mashing several ingredients and helpfully advises ” (This is best done with a child’s potato masher if you can find one, otherwise use a pastry blender)…”

A recipe for Chicken Genoa that would probably surprise Italians by calling for a pound of butter to cook two 2-pound chickens. You do skin the chickens first…

Quick Grits souffle for 100? It’s in there. Tamales (25 or 30 dozen)? Gotcha covered.

This was in 1975. According to the cover of the current edition, 750,000 have been sold, so there is undoubtedly a copy or six at a used bookstore near you.

Meanwhile, on the arts front, check out the high-end trash talk and wager between the rival cities’ art museums. Just when you’re feeling gloomy about culture in America, here comes this priceless piece of good cheer.

It’s also a reminder – should Black Friday find you in appliance shopping mode –  that shiny black surfaces in the kitchen are a very bad idea. This is not a room where it’s wise to have water spots look like dirt.

Poor fellow can barely see himself; and I'd just washed it that morning!

Bill built the Maine oven so the process could be filmed, so in a way I can thank The Three Thousand Mile Garden for that one. But that one never would have happened if the New York one hadn’t came first, and although Bill did of course build it the ultimate thanks there should probably go to his childhood.

There were several outdoor bread ovens in the neighborhood where he grew up, including one at his grandmother’s place. He never forgot the bread –  or the fact that the ovens were home built – so when I started making wistful noises about how nice it would be to have one they fell on receptive ears.

Next thing to be thankful for: he’s a man of action. And that goes not just for building the ovens but also for providing instructions. You too can have one of these things, not without a bit of work and not instantly, needless to say, but very very inexpensively and it ain’t rocket science, either. Here’s his step by step how-to:

THE OUTDOOR BREAD OVEN

story and pictures by Bill Bakaitis

For a number of years now, ever since The Three Thousand Mile Garden TV series aired, we have received a steady stream of requests for assistance/plans/advice for building an outdoor bread oven similar to the one constructed for that series. The latest request, from a school in Australia, prompted me to post this commentary.
I know it is not time for most of us in the Northern Hemisphere to begin construction, but we can dream on and plan for the spring, while the Australian crew begins work now. In the plans which follow the first four or five steps can actually be done now, in winter, well in advance of that burst of construction that comes with spring.
Our two ovens, the first in New York, and the second in Maine, were inspired by reading The Bread Ovens of Quebec*, by Lise Boily and Jean-Francois Blanchette. Although the Italian side of my family, and the community in which they were immersed, made and used several outdoor ovens, these were all made of stacked paving brick and mortar.  That tradition quickly fell into eclipse as the American-born children of my mother’s generation found the glory of ready-made, plastic-wrapped, balloon-bread.  Why not? It Builds Bodies Twelve Ways proclaimed the wrapper. It was quick and easy to buy, to eat, to forget. Sort of soft in the mouth and in the mind, an authentic American product of the 1950′s.

I was too young to fully understand how those Italian bread ovens were constructed and Uncle Richard, my mother’s brother could find only one person, Angelo Don Francisco, who recalled how it was done. His sketchy instructions, however, were no match for the weighty anthropological reconstruction of the French Canadian ovens described by Boily and Blanchette.  It is a text I highly recommend. All of our plans and techniques were highly influenced by their research.
Here is how we did it.

HOW TO BUILD A CLAY/BRICK OUTDOOR OVEN

1. DIAGRAM YOUR OVEN:

Decide upon the size and shape of your oven. From the photographs on p. 69 of the Boily/Blanchette text, a simple scaling grid overlay set for the length you decide upon will give the height of the oven and its position at apex. The formula and graph on pp. 38 and 39 will give the height of the door opening relative to the height.  From p. 48 the length to width ratio of the base can be determined, and by subtracting the 10″ thickness of the clay ‘loaves’ which will make the side walls of the oven the inner size of the oven will result.

Plans for the New York Oven, as extrapolated from Boily/Blanchette typological considerations (p 38-39) overlaid onto Diagram, p 69.

Both of our ovens closely followed those dimensions used in the construction of the oven constructed for Boily text.

The base (see step 2 below) is 75″ X 47″ OD. The inner height of dome at apex is 32″, and the outer dimension (w 5″clay wall above) is 37″. The height of our door opening is 20″; the width of the door opening at its base is also 20″.  This gives a theoretical working interior of 27″X55″ (24.5 sq ft) although the Maine oven turned out to be substantially larger than the first one we made in NY.

This size oven will bake @ 10 round loaves plus 4- 8 baguettes of bread, along with a small pizza or two in one baking, followed by a few pies and slow cooked beets, tomatoes or other vegetables using only the residual heat of the firing. It is the long heat storage time of the clay mass which makes all of this possible.

If this oven is too large for your needs, you will want to reduce the dimensions by following the ratios arrived at by the research team. Leslie will describe various baking processes and techniques in a separate post.

2a. DECIDE UPON THE LOCATION OF YOUR OVEN:

It should be close enough to the kitchen to be convenient for watching the fires, transporting the raised loaves into the oven and the baked loaves into the house, as well as loading the oven with all of the subsidiary items to be baked: pies, roasts, root crops and the pans of ripe tomatoes to be put up. At the same time, consider the fire hazards and avoid placing the oven next to a combustible structure. You will see that we realized the importance of safety AFTER we built the New York oven. Over two tons of stone, mortar, and clay are impossible to move, and we need to be especially mindful of fire hazards when we use this oven, which places limits on the times we can safely use it.

2b. BUILD A BASE OF STONE, MORTAR, SAND AND RUBBLE:

It should be as long and wide as your plans dictate and end up being knee to thigh high so as to make the heavy work of tending the fires and baking the bread easy.  Ours was made of stone and matter that we gathered from our yard and garden.  I swept the road before the road crew in the spring for much of the sand and gravel, and some stone I gathered from road cuts in the area.

3. POUR A CEMENT HEARTH:

3a. Lay a pair of full dimension 2×4′s (such as the rough cut stuff found at sawmills) on edge across the top of the base during the last round of leveling. These will extend out beyond the side of the base and will become the support for the roof. If you can only find lumberyard milled material, it may be wise to double up or go with 4×4′s.

3b. Over these construct a 2X4 frame around the perimeter of the base. This will correspond to your OD measurements. However, if you extend the 2X4′s a foot to the front of your base you will be able to use these arms as a foundation for a removable apron, useful for staging the loaves after the fire has died down and the coals have been raked.

Fill this void with cement, imbedding the metal door frame 2 ” into the cement. For good measure I placed a few bolts through the perimeter 2X4′s into the inner void, to be firmly affixed when the cement was poured. In this way they become permanent redundant construction members able to be used in the future if need be.

3c. Our metal door opening frames were bent at a local foundry from stock 6″ X 3/16″ flat AR metal.  Remember to add a 4″ lip on both ends and to have the height 22″ (for a 20″ opening) since it will be set 2″ deep into the cement.

All of the above  can be done this fall and winter preceding the spring work with the sapling armature and clay. Winter is also a good time to locate and test the clay for step 5.

4. BEND A FRAME OF SAPLINGS INTO THE SHAPE OF AN IGLOO CAGE:

4a. With magic marker trace out the inner dimensions of your oven; mark the apex point.

4b. Nail together some scrap lumber to hold the saplings,

4c. Gather together a few dozen flexible saplings .5 to 1.5″ in diameter. Apple, Maple, Viburnum, and Alder are all good. Gather more than you think you will need. Then begin the bending, shaping and wiring using the thickest saplings to set the major meridians. I used electric fence wire or twine as needed.

4d. As the shape comes into being you can progress to smaller and smaller twigs. To my eye this armature is the most beautiful part of the oven, and yet it is there to be sacrificed in the first fire. Photos alone will save this work.

4e. Cover the armature with old sheets. We learned that by doing this the resulting interior of the oven is both smoother and larger.

5. OBTAIN YOUR MARINE CLAY: Locate and test your clay. In NY we used some from the east bank of the Hudson River. In Maine a local farmer brought us a load. Before you even bring the clay to your site, however, you will want to test a small loaf by firing it in a bucket of burning sawdust. The first site I came upon made a great looking brick, but it crumbled at the first touch

6. MAKE YOUR CLAY LOAVES AND BUILD UP THE OVEN WALLS.

During this process it is VERY important to wear a pair of tough rubber gloves. Otherwise the clay, which has a high pH, will work its way under your fingernails and into your skin causing puckering, chapping, and painful lesions. Take it from me, and I ain’t tender.

6a. Mix marine clay with sand and earth into a doughy paste. Children tromping in a mixing trough are traditional, but a rototiller works better. As it is used it will chew up a small depression in the ground into which clay, sand, and water can be added to the rototilled earth making a superb mixture. The object is to lighten the clay and make it sticky.

6b. Bind the clay with hay or straw into “loaves/bricks” of about 20-40 pounds each. Clay is incredibly heavy, even after lightening it with sand and earth. The purpose of the straw is twofold: it binds and lightens the bricks, making them easier to work with, and more importantly creates a myriad of air passages that allow steam to escape during the firing process. Without these passages the bricks will explode. You can easily see why the early brick making industry was located near places where both salt hay and marine clay were available. Haverstraw Bay, for example, is derived from “Paver straw”.

6c. Set the wet loaves of clay over the frame, molding them together. The walls should be 10″ thick at the base gradually thinning to 5″ over the top of the oven. It helps to lay in a course of reinforcing chicken wire over the first few courses above the metal door opening as this area expands under use, the heat causing cracks. We did not know to do this on the NY oven and a permanent crack now exists over the arch. The second oven, in Maine, incorporated the chicken wire reinforcement and has only two hairline cracks to the left and right of the arch, a result of better distributing the stress of expansion.

6d. I placed a single removable plug into first course at the rear of the oven so that I could use this as an auxiliary air intake if needed. A threaded pipe with end cap could also be used.

6e. Allow the clay to dry for a month, loosely covered to protect  from the weather until the roof is built. Patch any cracks as they appear.

7. ROOF YOUR OVEN TO PROTECT IT FROM THE WEATHER:

Once fired, the clay will become brick on the inside, but the outside will remain clay and must be protected from weathering. We originally used the board and batten method used in Quebec, but now (16 years later) are having the wood replaced by corrugated metal roofing, which is both fire proof and rot-resistant. For either method use the 2X4′s (3a above) as the platform. They run crosswise under the hearth. Lengthwise over these attach another set of 2×4′s and then use these as the base onto which the roof is supported.  Since some rot appeared in this secondary set over the years, I used pressure treated material this year as a support for the metal roof.

8. BURN OUT THE ARMATURE, FIRE THE BRICK:

At the end of the drying period, a series of small fires inside will burn out the wooden cage and turn the clay into brick.  These first fires will demonstrate the efficiency of the door to dome ratio planned in step 1. A bed of fire brick may be added above the cement floor. For us, they seem to work better than the naked cement.

9. MAKE A DOOR:

Now that all the wood is burned out the clean sweep of the metal door frame provides a perfect template for constructing your door. I used a plywood core with aluminum flashing on the inside, boards on the outside and wooden handles.  It is only put in place after the fire dies down and the coals are spread out to temper the held heat, and also during the baking process itself, so it will never see direct flame.

10. TO BAKE:

10a. Build 2 fires, 1/2 hour apart. Build the first fire in front and then push it to the rear as wood for the second fire is added. If one large fire is laid, flames will be more likely to shoot out the front and ignite the A-Frame roof.  To be safe, we keep a fully charged garden hose at the ready as we fire the oven. When the fire dies down spread the coals evenly over the entire surface of the hearth.

10b. Rake out the coals; we use a hoe to scrape them into a metal wheelbarrow or bucket. Use a wet mop to swab out the hearth.

10c. The bread is laid directly on the hearth, the door closed and the held heat of the brick does the baking:  10 minutes for pizza; 20 minutes for small loaves; 30-45 minutes for large loaves.

compare to the New York walls Celia's inspecting

More on the baking techniques, some tested recipes, oven maintenance tricks, etc. in future posts.

The Boily/Blanchette text has a much more detailed description of the construction of the oven. You will want to read it for the more complete process, particularly if you are a guy like me who assumes the y chromosome is a natural problem solving device.

*Note: After Bill put in the link for buying the  book, we learned it was a lot rarer  - and a lot more expensive! – than we realized. If you don’t mind downloading lots of pdf files, you can get it free online from the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Addendum: Using Salt in the Clay

We did not add any salt to the clay we used in either of our ovens. The NY clay (pictured in the back of the truck in step 5 above) was used almost as soon as it came out of the ground.  It was blue-gray, sticky and eminently moldable.

We did not witness the digging up of the Maine clay so cannot comment on how long it had been out of the ground, but it arrived in a sticky moldable condition. Nearby ‘marine clay’ in situ looked just like the NY clay.

In neither case did we “weather the clay first” as Boily and Blanchette describe.  Since they refer to the excavation of French Canadian clay from intertidal areas one can assume it was also ‘marine clay’. This may mean it contains some sea salt, but if so their ‘weathering’ of the clay would seem to allow the natural rains to wash away any unbound salt. Dunno!

Boily and Blanchette refer to the addition of salt “perhaps to harden [the clay] and make the mixture waterproof” (page 15) and indicate that this was more common to the Gaspé Peninsula. Checking various atlases I see that the Gaspé is primarily a rocky upland area where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Laurentians and where the glacial clay deposits are likely to differ from the lowland  clays of the St. Lawrence River Valley and the broad Coastal Plain.

Elsewhere in the text (page 22) they say that sometimes the dome is protected with a layer of chalk or mortar. They appear not to mention the use of additional salt in the construction of the oven they documented.(page 47 following).

Although potters sometimes use salt to produce a glaze on their pottery, the heat of these bread ovens stays mostly inside the ovens. Ours have never produced enough heat to vitrify the outside surface, so whatever protective hardening the salt might produce, it probably wouldn’t be in the form of a glaze.*

If you want to try using salt it would be wise to test proportions in advance. Make two test bricks of approximately equal volume, mix a roughly measured amount of salt into one and leave the other au natural. Bake both in the sawdust bucket (step #5 above) to see if there is any difference.

*Salt-glazing involves throwing 10 to 15 pounds of salt or a salt/water mixture into the kiln during the final phase of firing.  At temperatures of 1,100 degrees or more, hydrogen chloride is produced. When the hydrogen chloride bonds with steam or atmospheric water vapor, it becomes hydrochloric acid gas. The acid then interacts with the clay to produce a glaze.  Truthfully, I would rather eat white bread than to breathe Hydrochloric acid vapor!

Photos of Bill building the oven by Leslie

Daffodils are close to the peak, we’re now enjoying daily  bouquets. Small bouquets, it must be admitted, because I hate to cut any no matter how many there are, but still

it must be time to

Plant the second round of lettuce.

Find the bags of summer clothing. 

Wish Wordsworth had kept his mouth shut, and

issue another Neat Old Tool Alert.

Yard sale season is upon us, and although they’re not common any more, there’s still a chance you’ll run into one of these  pieces of

antique ironing equipment

Though it probably won’t say right on it what it was made for –

In the 19th century, one meaning of “sad” was heavy; sad irons were the solid iron irons used to remove wrinkles from just about everything made out of cloth.

These early irons came in a huge number of shapes and sizes, but they had two things in common: a flat bottom, for obvious reasons, and the need to be heated in some way that would not deposit soot on the business end.

The heaters were as various as the irons, but this kind of almost-griddle was fairly common. Most came with their own little stoves, though you could put them on your kitchen range if you felt like it, and the size of the surface allowed you to heat 2 irons at a time, so there was always a hot one ready when the one you were using began to cool.

A minor convenience, but every little bit counts when you have to iron everything and use a sad iron to do it.

What’s convenient these days is a large (@ 18 x 6 inch) super-heavy, super-shallow ( 1 inch deep) pan that’s pretty enough to bring to the table. Its griddlehood is obvious; the oval shape fits nicely over 2 burners no matter what’s fueling them. And it’s a great space saver in the oven.  

This potato cake baked between the oven door and the chicken roasting pan.

Because it’s black and heavy it puts a terrific crust on things. Also because it’s black and heavy it calls for a slightly cooler oven – pretend it’s pyrex and lower the heat @ 25 degrees.

Unless you’re making pizza, of course, when that heat holding mass just helps de-wimpify the common kitchen stove.

Update (of sorts): The art of cooking in cast iron has been extensively, expertly explained here - on the blog of the French Culinary Institute, a link I found at Next Avenue, my new blogging neighborhood. My posts for the site are about gardening and can be found in the Living and Learning section, under (what else?) Home and Garden.

Start on the endless spring to-do list. Lawn and garden cleanup, shrub pruning, seed-starting, seed planting…

and (among yet other things)

* Consider the freezer

* Start on the bulb maps

* Figure out where the garlic is going to go

* Cut back and repot tired houseplants

* Scout for morel spots

* The Freezer: For those who live in the frost belt and want to be locavorous¹, “fresh” and “local” need to spend some time apart in the winter. It’s possible to live well on nothing but home-canned produce and the denizens of the root cellar, but it isn’t easy. And “well” is a relative term. For more on this, see A Love Letter to The Freezer.

If you don’t have a freezer, this is probably a good time to buy one. (Right now is a good time to buy almost anything, actually, except not lamb until Easter’s over.)

If you do have a freezer, you won’t be surprised to learn I found enough rhubarb for pie just yesterday, when I was looking for the last bit of squash tortilla base that I thought I had but evidently don’t.

In other words, time to use up anything left from last spring, including any asparagus soup you may have been hoarding. Wouldn’t hurt to work hard on last summer too – you’re going to need the room almost before you know it. Also the less there is in there, the easier it is to keep all of it frozen in coolers while you defrost the freezer - if this is the year to do that. Once every three does the job for us.

* Bulb maps: None of the ways I’ve drawn these so far have been entirely satisfactory, but all of them have been better than no map at all. At fall planting time there is simply no way to remember where things are needed, or where things already are that you don’t want to stab. Photos coupled with drawings with measurements are the most refined I ever got but I still whapped several crocus and an expensive daffodil so this year I’m going to try a grid.

* Figure out the garlic spot: The bed where the garlic will be planted won’t be needed until October, but knowing which one it will be helps determine succession plantings. If the garlic is going to follow the bush beans, for instance, the late beets will have to go somewhere else so you don’t want to waste the pepper area on late lettuce when that could share the former summer squash bed with the kale and broccoli raab.

* Cut back and repot tired houseplants: This can be done any time before summer, but doing it now has advantages.

a) New growth is just starting, so cutting back now means the plant won’t waste any of that energy.

b) Any trauma connected with root disturbance will be healed by the time it’s time to harden off the plants.

c) Busy as you are, you’re not as busy as you will be in May and June.

* Scout for morel spots: Driving around with Bill is driving around with somebody who’s always saying “ look at all those elms! that should be worth a visit next April.” He’s been collecting for more than 40 years and teaching about mushrooms for about 30 of them. His extensive morel hunting post, with many tips you won’t find elsewhere, is here.

Dying Elms at the edge of a well limed hay field often produce an abundance of Morels

Subtract the green to get the March view.

photographs by Bill Bakaitis

My George H.W. Oh boy is he ever out of it Bush moment. I did know disposable pods were part of the espresso boom, but until I went to Amazon to check how common these things might be…

OMG. Double eek. But there in the list was an oddity that almost defies imagination: ” The Java Wand is a portable, single serve, miniaturized French Press filter attached to a durable, hand blown, glass straw that brews and filters coffee and tea leaves in your cup.” 

If any of you have ever used one of these things, please send us a review. I burn to know, I really do.